Mitsubishi Heavy again ordered to compensate for wartime labor

August 11, 2017

GWANGJU, SOUTH KOREA- Gwangju District Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. on Friday to pay damages to South Koreans for forced labor during World War II.

The court ordered the Japanese company to pay 100 million to 150 million won to each of the four plaintiffs--three female former workers and a bereaved family member of a deceased female victim.

The four women applied to work in Japan around May 1944 as they had been told that they would be able to make a lot of money by working in Japan and be given opportunities to study free of tuition fees, according to the ruling.

But they were forced to engage in munitions factory work in the central Japan city of Nagoya under strict supervision, the ruling said, adding that they did not receive enough pay. One of the four died due to a huge earthquake that hit central and western Japan in December 1944.

The court said South Korean individuals' rights to make claims against Japanese have not vanished under a treaty concluded when South Korea normalized its diplomatic relations with Japan in 1965. Jiji Press